Knox, Dilwyn; Knox, John; (2024) Philoponus’ Contribution to Copernicus’ Doctrine of Gravity. In: Vimercarti, Emmanuele, (ed.) Reception of John Philoponus’ Natural Philosophy: Aristotelian Science From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. (pp. 201-218). Bloomsbury Publishing: London, UK.

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Abstract

Most of Copernicus’ On the Revolution [of the Heavens], published in 1543, concerns mathematical astronomy. To support his heliocentric hypothesis, he devised an original and detailed doctrine of gravity. In two previous publications, appeared in 2007 and 2013, Knox suggested that the most important components of Copernicus’ doctrine were inspired by the entry for ‘motion’ (kinēsis), in the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopaedia known as ‘the Suda’. Unbeknown to Copernicus, the entry was largely taken from a passage on the motion of the elements in Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul. In this chapter Knox adds two further considerations. First, he analyses Philoponus’ account of elementary motion in detail and compared it to the version in the Suda. Second, he discusses reactions, favourable and unfavourable, to his suggestion that Copernicus’ doctrine drew on the kinēsis entry in the Suda.

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